Animoto.com

End-of-Summer Give-away!

This fifteen dollar-value necklace is only available 

to those participating this give-away,

but the winner can choose any Heartspace item

valued ten dollars or under.

 Want to Play? Here's how: 

• Just post your comment here and--

• Leave a heart on my Etsy site (that is, mark me as a favorite if you have an Etsy acct.) :http://www.heartspace.etsy.com
  

•  Feel free to comment on this blog as often to increase your chances of winning.  
  

• Winner will be announced the day after Labor Day Weekend.  Be thinking of which prize you want: the pictured necklace or anything in my shop under ten dollars.
  

• Good luck -- and best wishes from the Heart Space.

How to Make Blackberry Pie: Part One

Kneading the dough

Rolling pie dough between sheets of wax paper

The dough sticks to wax paper and is easy to transfer to pie pan.

Waiting for the lid.

Fluting the crusts together

Good idea to cut a vent

¡Esto es!  See my recipe in posting below. 

Berry Pie: The Zen Way

Preheat Oven to 400 degrees.

(Yes, this is my antique, 1970's Magic Chef Electric Range.)

BLACKBERRY FILLING

Mix and let stand while you make crust:

About 6 cups fresh wild blackberries

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup Minute Tapioca

(make sure you have 1 tablespoon butter to add to berries before top crust)

CLAIRE'S CRUST (EASY)

1. Measure two cups unbleached flour, exactly as possible. "Cut" off excess flour at top with table knife.
   
2. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon sea salt.
   
3. As you pour in 1/2 cup canola or other suitable oil (mild flavored), mix with fork.
   
4. Add approximately 1/2 cup milk (this is the Zen part) according to atmospheric conditions the dough will come together with more or less milk. As dough begins to stick together stop pouring milk.  Sometimes I have used as little as 1/4 cup milk. 
   
5. Knead the dough slightly and form soft ball.  Divide dough into two equal balls.
   
6. Flatten 1 ball onto wax paper and cover with another sheet of wax paper.  
   
7. Roll with rolling pin from center outward until dough is about 1/4 inch thick, roundish and larger than your pie pan.  
   
8. Lift top sheet of wax paper and place over 8 1/2 inch pie plate, wax paper side up. 
   
9. Peel off wax paper.
   
10. Add berries + 1 tablespoon butter, broken into little dots that you scatter on top of fruit.
11. Repeat the roll and lift, laying top crust over berries and butter.
12. Crimp together top and bottom crust.
13. Cut out vent. I always put a heart: for Heart Space, for love, for the courageous heart it takes to brave those thorns and pick the wild blackberries.
14. Place pie pan on cookie sheet and bake for one hour at 400 degrees. (Middle oven rack)
15. Cool for at least 1 1/2 hours for best results. 
    

See photos of steps in posting above.

A Little Mermaid Surfaces in High Summer

Yemaya, 

or La Serenita:

The Sea Goddess of South America

Mermaid Necklace, by Clarita

for Heartspace

http://www.heartspace.etsy.com

The clear and darker aquamarine stones in this

necklace catch the light and pool cool oceanic color.  Notice the 

silvery dolphin the mermaid rides and the little gold stars.

I found this onyx, hand-painted in Ukraine pendant 

in Santa Fe, New Mexico!

One of my favorite mythical creatures is the mermaid.  I love the thought of a beautiful sea creature: half-human and half-fish.  The iridescent scales, the comb of shell and the hair that floats like seaweed atop the water.  The story of a mermaid will always enchant me, whether Disney or something more numinous, such as The Secret of Roan Inish, or the Silkie of Shule Skerry.

In Hispanic cultures, the mermaid is a sea goddess: La Serenita, often pictured in a floaty white dress with a star on her forehead and instead of long golden hair, Serenita's locks are as black as the night. This South American goddess is descended from the African goddess Yemaya.  

The sixteen-inch mermaid necklace I created for my Heartspace Etsy store consists of a Ukrainian pendant painted on semi-precious onyx, with what must have been a minute paint brush.  The pendant is an one inch by one half inch faceted oval.  The necklace itself is of onyx, fresh-water Aegean blue pearls, aquamarine faceted rondelles, gold-plated beads, aquamarine chips and lovely Japanese seed beads, like opalescent water droplets.  The clasp is gold-filled. A truly winsome bit of fancy.